Tijn Wybenga & AM.OK

Composer and director Tijn Wybenga is no stranger to inJazz, for in our 2019 edition he spoke about his AM.OK project during our conference. Great to have him in our 2021 showcase selection with new music!

AM.OK’s music is created by the sampling of free improvisations by the AM.OK members and Dutch jazz greats Joris Roelofs, Reinier Baas and Ben van Gelder. Inspired by the approach of hiphop legend J Dilla, Tijn Wybenga composes by sampling, stretching, cutting up and transforming exclusively recorded parts into new music to be played live. You’ll hear raging solo’s from the horns, a monstrous rhythm section with no mercy and a string quartet that will sound like four banjo’s, four harps or four woodpeckers. Says Tijn: “Due to the pandemic I had more possibilities to collaborate with the AM.OK members, having them layer new sounds on top of their own sampled beats.”

It was BIMHUIS’s talent development platform BIMHUIS Productions who embraced Tijn’s vision and had him bring his musical dream to fruition: to form a fourteen-piece band called AM.OK, full of famous names from the Dutch jazz scene, to develop his highly original creative process together. To expand performance possibilities, Tijn also performs with AM.OK as an octet. But for this performance we had the complete fourteen-piece madness on stage!

Jamie Peet – drums
Teis Semey – guitar
Alessandro Fongaro – bass
Felix Back – keys
Tom Pritchard – vibes
Pablo Rodriguez – violin
Yanna Pelser – viola
George Dumitriu – viola
Pau Sola – cello
Alistair Payne – trumpet
Kika Sprangers – saxophone
Federico Calcagno – bass clarinet
Odei Al-Magut – trombone
Tijn Wybenga – conductor